Math is Everywhere! Unfortunately

I was certain, all those years ago in math class when we started word problems, that I would never, never need any skills contained in such a form. "A train leaves the station at..." drove me nuts, perverting my lovely friendly words into math problems in disguise.

Today, however, I spent a deal of time and brain cells computing how best to get into Boston to the new job. Driving is nothing I considered, both the traffic and the cost of parking being frankly ridiculous. But even leaving out the bus factor, there are multiple train and T* options, and fares and parking fees to consider, and the savings on monthly passes but for half of May is it worth...? Ow.

*what we call the subway around here

I eventually determined that no, it isn't a savings to get a pass for half the month. It looks like for May, it's cheaper* to pay for parking and take the T. For a full month, the T-and-train pass will be cheaper than paying for parking would be. But it took me a lot of work to get there.

*not cheap, but cheaper

Then there are the new socks, in the Van Dyke sock pattern. I finished the toe and got ready to start the patterning, and hit a snag. It's a charted pattern, not written out, and I don't have a lot of experience with charts, but it's only a small chart and I copied it bigger and color-coded it to be sure I knew what to do.

It was only when I started knitting the first row that I saw the problem: you can't decrease by two and increase by one in a row without screwing up your count. Checked Ravelry and sure enough, erratum for row 1, stitch 7. I do feel wicked smart to have stopped and checked instead of blundering on in hopes that it would work out. There's trusting the pattern and there's that's just wrong, and it seems I'm learning the difference. Slowly.

Hockey note: holy crow, the Bruins are trying to drive me nuts. Win three in a row, lose three in a row? Maybe at last they will play as if they have something to lose, now that they do. If you need me tomorrow night, I'll be the one biting my nails and not watching the TV.